


projection

by deniigiq



Series: electric sheep [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Boxing, M/M, Music, Sensory Overload, matt gets a guitar pillow and falls in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:51:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: He was scared and he was suffering and he had asked for help-specifically, explicitly asked for help, and come hell or high water, Foggy was going to make something happen.





	projection

**Author's Note:**

> this is a continuation of anthropomorphism and alarm bells. I would strongly recommend that you read those first; if you have not, you might be a little lost in what Matt is talking about later on.

Foggy stared at the cup of coffee on his desk like it was poison. Part of this was because it probably _was_ poison because Matt, despite being connected to every database the university could afford, knew absolutely fuck all about making coffee. The other part of it was that coffee meant that Matt had been putting himself near water again, which was less than ideal with all his currently exposed hardware.

Ernst had to open Matt’s chest cavity to do a manual update in his core. The non-standard hardware in Matt’s inner workings meant that getting in there was an enormous hassle every manual maintenance day. Sometimes, Ernst wasn’t sure he’d be able to open it again if he closed it between repairs, so to this end, he’d removed the main chest panel and its synthetic skin covering entirely until the maintenance was complete, leaving a gaping hole in Matt’s chest.

Foggy had been shocked to see into Matt’s body the first time and was even more confused to see the inner workings of a bot.

He’d just assumed they’d be hollow and full of bright, twinkling lights like in Star Trek. Matt’s chest, however, was caged by synthetic plastic-looking ribs. The space between his ribs was filled with a soft bag of gel-like substance, which Ernst had explained was a cooling apparatus. Nestled in the midst of this was a curious contraption which neither Ernst nor Antonio could explain. It was a non-standard piece of equipment which Matt had come with and was allegedly a potential bitch to remove. It looked like a bifurcated piece of coral cast out of silver. Shockingly delicate, it branched into two main clusters of netting and Foggy had a strong suspicion that they had once been used as some kind of metal lungs. Now, however, they simply served to hold Matt’s heart in place. Matt’s heart was an organically shaped oval, which looked more like a river rock than a human heart. This, however, met Foggy’s Star Trek expectations. The heart, or “core” as the robotics team called it, opened up into a maze of green, blue, and silver panels with occasional blinks of light. There was a light on the outer front-facing panel of the heart which glowed a florescent teal through the cooling bags when it was turned on. Under this were a few interlocking flat pieces of metal which Foggy had learned were buttons to manually shut down and restart the heart.

This is all to say that Matt making coffee was the bot equivalent of cracking open a can of Monster over your keyboard at 4am. It was not the worst idea in existence, but if you had any sense of self-preservation, you’d maybe put the can where you knew you wouldn’t spill it.

He wondered if he could change the lock code on his kitchen door to put some distance between the proverbial can and his bot, but then realized he’d have to change the one on the bathroom door too because Matt was nothing if not resourceful.

He picked up the coffee and took a sip to verify that it was indeed horrible (it was), and then carried it, along with his bag, back to his desk. He dropped the bag on his bed and dropped himself into his desk chair. He stared at the desk and saw that his stack of to-do lists on the right-hand side were too neat. Fucking Matt.

Of all the shit that Foggy had expected when he’d agreed to give Matt free access to his room (it turned out he didn’t like being in the lab by himself), he’d never expected the guy to be such a snoop. He liked to know what Foggy was doing apparently, which was endearing. But what was less endearing was how Foggy was 90% he’d corrupted his sticky-note program on his laptop so that he was forced to physically write notes to leave on his desk where Matt could feel them up for all Foggy’s business.

Foggy couldn’t be too mad though, Matt wasn’t quite human enough to know that it was okay to just ask.

 

 

A few days after the coffee, Foggy found Matt tucked into the corner of his room next to the closet in front of the guitar that he’d brought from home. If he hadn’t known Matt was blind, he would have thought he was staring at it intently. Well, he was still kind of doing that, but Foggy got the feeling that he was trying to work out what right it had to be in the room rather than what it was. He was probably offended that Foggy had put something new in the room without explaining to him what it was like he usually did.

“Matt,” he said to the back of his t-shirt, “You okay there, buddy?”

Matt nodded without turning around to acknowledge him. Foggy gave in and dropped his stuff on the bed before wandering over and crouching down next to Matt to join him in staring at the guitar.

“Do you like it?” He asked hesitantly. Matt was starting to be able to have opinions on things again (coffee = hell liquid, lab = bad robot jail, cantaloupe = optimal smell object), but it was hard to predict whether he’d like things or not. Matt processed the question.

“Affirmative, it has a pleasing shape.”

Foggy smiled.

“If you think that’s good, just wait ‘til you hear it.”

 He moved from his crouch to sit with his legs crossed. He gently prodded Matt so that he moved a bit further away and sat down as well. Foggy pulled the guitar in his lap and gave it a strum. He wasn’t a great musician, but he’d played since he was a kid, so it felt natural.

Matt lit up like Christmas. He practically squirmed into Foggy’s lap to get closer to the Nice Sound and tilted his face towards Foggy as a means of getting him to make it again. Because he was a sap and couldn’t say no in the face of Matt’s new human impulses, he obliged and strummed again a few times. Matt practically purred. On a whim, Foggy played a few chords together and only stopped when he couldn’t stop laughing because Matt was impeding his hands by pressing his ear against them and the hollow in the guitar.

 

 

So Matt liked music and especially liked Foggy playing music and especially, especially liked Foggy playing one note at a time in an otherwise silent room. His new trick was being in Foggy’s room when he came home from torts, sitting in the corner with the guitar in his lap. He never plucked any strings, even after Foggy had shown him how. The first time he did, he’d freaked out and done his “sensory input is greater than processing ability” thing and had needed some socket-time to settle down. Foggy figured it had something to do with feeling the vibrations in his hands, lap, and ears all at the same time.

But there was something about Matt lately that Foggy couldn’t put his finger on, and it was bothering him. It wasn’t that the guy was annoying, but it was like when he was in the room, he was crowding Foggy. It didn’t make sense because, unless instructed otherwise, Matt tended to settle himself in corners or around the perimeter of Foggy’s dorm. It was as though he always needed to be able to touch a wall, which made sense given that he’d been blind as a human and was effectively still blind as a bot. But it was more than that, Matt’s skirting and snooping and quiet insistence on music seemed to Foggy to be him trying to tell him something.

He looked over to where Matt was cuddling the guitar by the closet. Even laying down, there was a line of tension in his shoulders. Thinking about it, Foggy only ever saw them relaxed post-socket shock, and even then just for a second at a time.

He had a thought.

“Hey buddy, I’ve gotta go talk to Ernst and Co. for a bit. I’ll be back in a few, okay?” Matt processed.

“Affirmative. Music on return?” he implored. Those puppy eyes were gonna be the death of him.

“Music after two hours of studying, I promise,” Foggy assured him. Matt hummed a pleased noise and settled back into cuddling the guitar.

 

 

Ernst’s eyebrows tried to mate with his hairline when Foggy tried to explain Matt’s tenseness.

“Foggy, he’s an android, they don’t exactly relax. There’s no need to.”

“Yes,” Foggy countered because he was a future lawyer damnit, “Except you’re wrong on two points. First, he’s not an android—Maiko told me so. She said, if anything, he’s more like a cyborg. And secondly, he _is_ capable of relaxing, I’ve seen him do it a thousand times for like a second each.”

Ernst’s eyebrows continued their efforts to fornicate.

“Okay, that’s fair, “he said, “I mean, I don’t know if he’s quite human enough to be classified as a cyborg yet, but I get where she’s coming from. But even if he could relax, there’s no real way for me to make him do that without coding it into him, and I am trying very hard not to interfere with his existing base codes. I don’t know if even George could make that happen and George can make _anything_ happen—”

“I’m not asking you to make him relax. I just know that he’s capable of doing it and I have an idea about how to help him, but I just need to verify a few things first.”

“Alright. Know that I’m skeptical, but shoot.”

“When Matt got to Columbia, someone told me that he was pretty beat up, is that true?” Ernst flinched.

“God yeah, Deb and Lin spent hours trying to repair his skin. You should have seen it, man, it was fucked up. Like he’d been someone’s personal punching bag. Or knife bag. Personal knife punching bag.”

Foggy’s heart clenched at the thought of Matt’s old injuries, even though by then he probably couldn’t have felt them.

“Right, um. Someone also told me he was combative? Is that true?” Ernst frowned.

“We have a fucking mole in this department. People aren’t supposed to know this kind of thing.”

“Yeah, her name is Haley Swanson and she’s dating Eduardo Morales, but let’s not dwell on that. All I need is a yes or no.”

Ernst narrowed his eyes and Foggy imagined a tiny mental Ernst writing a tiny mental note that said “PURGE THE WITCH” and plastering it to the note-covered wall of his tiny mental lab.

“Noted,” Ernst said, “And yes. Professor Rosen had to step in to deprogram a lot of his core because he presented a danger to the people working on him. He didn’t get too far though, so he let George have a go. She couldn’t rewrite the codes, but she did manage to disable enough of them for him to, uh, you know, stop trying to strangle people with their belts. She seriously thought about writing her dissertation on it.”

Strangle people with…? Jesus, he hadn’t even considered what “combative” had actually entailed for Matt. He’d just figured he’d had some random punch or kick functions. That sounded more like something a lot more intentional, almost like Matt was a--

“A weapon,” Ernst told him seriously, “The word you’re looking for is ‘weapon.’”

“Holy shit,” Foggy said.

“Tell me about it. It’s pretty fucked up. Before we got him, there were rumors flying around about some underground orgs programing bots to fight a real hush-hush war, but no one actually believed it. I mean, how would they even get their bots? They’d have to steal them from morgues or, uh--” _Kill them themselves_ \--“Anyways, after we got him, it was, uh, pretty clear that the world really is that awful, so we did our best to get him to a place where he wouldn’t have to fight ever again.”

Foggy processed for a moment. Maybe Matt would have been better off decommissioned. Dismantled. Laid to fucking rest. Maybe his idea was actually pretty naïve.

But then again. If Matt's violent functions were disabled, its not like he could do anything drastic. And if it meant that Matt had another thing to add to his 'like' list, it still wouldn't hurt to try. 

“Okay, Ernst. Um, thanks for that. And I’m sorry you all have a mole.”

Ernst’s shoulders lost some of their stiffness and he smiled at Foggy much more like his usual self, “Don’t worry, it’ll be handled.”

 

 

“Matty, I’m home,” Foggy sang as he returned to his dorm. Sure enough, like an enormous cat or at least an enormous safety hazard, Matt was sprawled all over the guitar in the dark. He perked up when Foggy turned on the light in the room.

“Music after two hours of studying? I promise?” He asked. Foggy’s heart crawled into his throat.

“Yeah, buddy. I’m not studying tonight, let’s play some music now.”

 

 

Matt went missing for a few days after that. It was debate season and he remained the favored practice bot, even with his chest gaping open. By the time he’d reclaimed his corner of Foggy’s dorm, Foggy was drowning in coursework and didn’t have time to enact his plan. Matt seemed to pick up on Foggy’s stress and didn’t ask for music. He did, however, cuddle the guitar. In an exhaustion-fueled haze, Foggy searched the internet for pillows shaped like guitars because, bot or not, laying on a floor/guitar could not be comfortable.

The good news was that they did exist, the bad news was that they looked pretty silly. He bought one anyways.

The arrival of the guitar-pillow was followed by a series of Matt-less days which were the result of completion of his manual maintenance. By the time Foggy managed to get back on track with his cyborg companion, it had been three weeks since his conversation with Ernst.

He worked up the courage one night, leaning back in his desk chair watching Matt cuddle his new guitar pillow (which, if he was capable of it, he _loved_ ). Matt’s IT t-shirt was rucked up to reveal a stretch of pale, almost imperceptibly variegated skin. It was the skin that reminded Foggy of his original plan.

“Hey Matty, you wanna do something fun?” he asked. Matt hummed his processing noise then turned his face toward Foggy.

“Invalid question. Please resubmit request.”

Foggy sighed. Matt was much more _Matt_ in his check-ups with Ernst. The snark he showed in those meetings never lasted after the wires were unplugged. Foggy really wished that it would follow them out of the lab one of these days.

“We’re going on an adventure. Come with me,” he replied. He hopped out of his chair, hauled Matt off the floor and grabbed his keys. Although he complied, Foggy was pretty sure Matt wasn’t too pleased to leave his pillow. He started walking down the hall before remembering his _blind android_ and went back to give Matt his elbow to hold onto before heading down the to campus gym.

 

 

It was nearly midnight and the gym was closed, but as a post-grad Foggy’s card gave him access to a lot of bizarre places on campus after hours. He scanned his ID and pulled Matt with him through the door.

It was dark inside, but there was enough light to see by from the outside street lights and Matt was blind anyways, so Foggy didn’t bother with the light. He guided Matt to the wrestling room and left him standing with a punching bag on one side and a tub of equipment and towels on the other. Matt tilted his head around to figure out where they were.

“Unfamiliar location,” he stated. In the dark room, he looked even more human than usual. His stiffness hidden by the stark shadows in his clothes.

“This is the gym,” Foggy told him, “I thought you might like it in here.”

“Request unclear.”

“You know how you like the guitar?” Foggy prompted.

“Affirmative, like the guitar,” Matt replied.

“I thought you might like the gym,” Foggy offered cautiously.

“Association unclear.” Foggy sighed.

“Matt, I know you don’t have anything helping you be a person right now, so this might be difficult, but do you remember being a human?” Matt processed. Foggy hoped he wouldn’t invalid the question, because that was going to make this whole thing a lot more difficult.

“Affirmative, remember being a human,” Matt told him.

“Thank fuck. Okay, when you were a human, I think you may have spent some time in a gym.”

“Association unclear.”

“C’mon man, no one has abs like that without the gym, not even androids.”

“Association unclear. Please define ‘abs.’”

Foggy groaned. This wasn’t going the way he had hoped. This called for an alternative approach. He looked at the equipment tub. It was like a pandora’s box of secret wrestling/kickboxing gear. Foggy had neither the knowledge or the will to try to put any of it on Matt, so he decided to forgo it for now. He’d watch some Youtube videos on how to put on gear tomorrow. He put an arm around Matt’s shoulder and guided him towards the punching bag. He lifted one of Matt’s hands, curled the fingers in, and then pressed its knuckles against the bag. Matt’s arm laid pliable in his grip, but he didn’t lower it or uncurl his fingers.

“This, Matty,” Foggy said, moving Matt’s hand and therefore his elbow back before bringing it forward so that the knuckles once again rested against the bag. “I think you may have done this before. Ernst told me that you used to fight once. I thought that maybe doing this would help you relax a little, you know? Get it out of your system.” He waited. Matt processed.

Then he pulled back his arm and mimicked the gesture Foggy had done with him on his own. He did it again with a twist to his knuckles, as though aiming the punch. Foggy’s eyes widened and he held his breath.

Matt froze and for a second Foggy’s heart did too. He realized that there was a plummeting feeling in his gut. Matt tilted his head slowly, fluidly. Like a predator.

He moved a foot behind him as if to step back and then threw a fist into the bag so hard it shook dust off the top of it. He followed that with another one, and then another until all Foggy could hear was the bag’s chain shaking and fists smacking and pounding against thick fabric. The stiffness in Matt’s limbs vanished as he was suddenly in constant motion, bouncing up and down between hits, jerking and swaying side to side as if challenging the bag. Foggy had expected maybe a few hits and the triggering of some fond memories of agency. He hadn’t expected to see a weapon.

And Matt was 100% a weapon. He struck and danced like a mongoose, landing hit after hit without so much as a flinch. If he’d had flesh, he’d have rent it from his knuckles. He got up in the bag’s space, taunting what would have been an opponent’s face before smashing a terrible right hook into the imaginary face, followed by another and then another. Then he bounced back out of the imaginary opponent’s reach and danced a bit, waiting for a returning blow. After the third or fourth time of doing this, he leapt back and then threw his body into a kick so powerful it violently rattled the bag’s chains in the ceiling and send it juddering wildly in its restraints.

Matt laid several more blows with his fists on the bag but then jerked back and the forward, suddenly latching his arms around the bag, hugging it close. Foggy noticed with horror that Matt was audibly breathing, or trying to. His chest was expanding and he was making a weird gasping noise, as though he was trying to draw air through a crushed windpipe. Then Foggy realized that that was exactly what he was trying to do. He was trying to make his silver lungs work but they didn’t, they couldn’t, there was no blood for him to supply oxygen to. No heart to keep pumping.

This was a terrible idea.

What he’d hoped would bring Matt some relief was obviously hurting him. Foggy felt tears pricking at his eyes as he reached out a hand to place on Matt’s shoulder blade, whether to calm him or comfort him or make him stop trying to breathe, he wasn’t sure. Matt seemed to be getting even more agitated, though, and he jerked his shoulder blade to shake off Foggy’s hand. It stung, but not more than seeing the remnants of Matt’s humanity trying to gain control over his synthetic body.

“Why?” Matt suddenly gasped out as the clinking of the punching-bag’s chain bounced throughout the room, “Why? Why? WHY?” he screamed into the bag, gasping through his artificial throat and silver lungs.

“WHY? WHY? WHY? NO, no. No. Please. Please make it stop. Make it stop,” he snarled, “Make it stop. I lied. I revoke it. MAKE IT STOP.”

Horrified and absolutely clueless what to do, Foggy stretched his arms out to cradle the air around Matt—to catch him if he fell. His heart was breaking, but he was also a future lawyer and he couldn’t help it, he needed more information.

“Make what stop, Matty? What are you revoking?” he asked as he blinked tears out of his eyes.

Matt gasped, but didn’t process.

“Confirmation. I revoke it. I revoke it. I lied. I do not confirm. I refuse. Make it stop. Give it back, please give it back.” Matt’s grip on the bag loosened and he curled himself in a ball on the floor in front of it. Foggy dropped down next to him. Matt made a noise like a sob and Foggy couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He threw his arms around Matt and gripped him tight against his chest. Matt made that terrible noise again. Then again. Then went completely still in Foggy’s arms.

His head dropped into the crook of Foggy’s neck and his shoulders fell. He was incredibly heavy. It was the first time he’d seen Matt completely relaxed and all Foggy could do was choke on his own quiet sobs against Matt’s shoulder. He’d turned off. His core couldn’t handle the input. Couldn’t handle emotion for more than a moment.

But he’d remembered, without the wires to help him. He’d thought on his own; he’d called himself ‘I.’ His body had tried to breathe on its own; it remembered breathing. He was scared and he was suffering and he had asked for help-specifically, explicitly asked for help, and come hell or high water, Foggy was going to make something happen.

 

 


End file.
